Content with customized advertisement

ABSTRACT

The invention provides a method and system for customizing advertisements to the individual viewer or user receiving a content which may be generic or customized, subject to or independent of, a broadcast schedule.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This Application is a Continuation of application Ser. No. 10/704,282, filed Nov. 7, 2003; which is a Continuation-In-Part of application Ser. No. 10/090,439, filed Mar. 4, 2002 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,721,955); which is a Continuation of application Ser. No. 09/487,120, filed Jan. 19, 2000 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,434,747).

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to the transmission of broadcast media over a data network, and more particularly to, a method and system for providing a customized media list to a user over that data network, such that customized advertisements can be individually tailored to customized or uncustomized content.

2. Description of the Related Art

Broadcast media (including visual and audio media over any electronic network) has been provided to viewers and listeners for decades and typically falls under the paradigm illustrated in prior art FIG. 1. Prior art FIG. 1 is a block diagram view of a conventional broadcast media paradigm. In prior art FIG. 1, media 5, includes both content 10 (e.g. television shows, sports, news, weather, movies, concerts, etc.) and advertising 15. The content 10 is provided to the viewer. and listener for entertainment or information purposes, while the advertising 15 is typically used to provide revenues for the broadcaster 20. The broadcaster 20 also shares the advertising revenues with the content 10 providers. Thus, from FIG. 1, the broadcaster 20 is the distributor 25 of the content 10 and the advertising 15 to the viewer and listener 30 through a distribution means 35. The distribution means 35 includes public broadcast 40, cable 45 distribution and satellite 50 distribution, and internet 55 distribution. In essence, the broadcaster 20 distributes the content 10 and advertising 15 through the distribution means 35 and generally shares the costs of distributing such content 10 and advertising 15 with the viewer and listener 30 through the distribution means 35 to a video or audio receiver, such as television, computer, handheld communication device, or datapad 65.

Advertisers are subjected to several disadvantages with the paradigm art FIG. 1. As is known, advertisers can only guess as to the number of the target audiences viewing the content 10. Well known audience surveyors only estimate the number or actual viewers and listeners that watch and listen to the content 10 and advertising 15. The advertisers 15 target audiences based on such estimated ratings. Thus, advertisers are paying for advertising that may never reach the full target audience. This is because the advertisement is not reaching 100 percent of the target audience. In fact, it has been widely reported that only 5% of advertisements reach any viewers at all, a phenomenon that will be heightened by the proliferation of such screeners as TIVO and the cable services and receptors that have currently or soon will have TIVO-like features built in. Taken in the meaning of this art, the term ‘advertiser’, encompasses both an advertising provider and a content provider involved in tailoring advertisements for the individual or specific users.

Another disadvantage with the paradigm of prior art FIG. 1 is that television and radio channels are not customized to individual viewers and listeners, thus making targeted advertisement virtually impossible.

Moreover, a disadvantage is found in the fact that broadcast television and most cable and satellite content 10 is subject to a schedule, which viewers and listeners may not always be available to adhere to. Thus, they are forced to miss the scheduled content or record the content with devices that can block out conventional advertisements.

A need therefore exists for a method and system that mitigates or removes these disadvantages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides a method for an advertiser providing a customized advertisement over a data network to a viewer/user, the customized advertisement being presented together with or placed within generic or customized digitized media delivered over an electronic network, such as broadcast television, cable satellite, the internet, and any wireless assisted communication system. Such delivery may or may not be subject to a broadcast schedule. The customized advertisement may take the form of a periodic intermittent message or a product or service placed within the content itself.

The customized advertisement is selected for the individual viewer/user based on a viewer's expressed preference or viewing habits, wherein the preferences or viewing habits are transmitted over the data network to the advertisers or content distributors or others contracting with the advertisers to reach targeted audiences. Such contractors may include a time frame for reaching the targeted audience.

The data network may include a communication layer, content module, or selection menu. The data network may include a content display device, an intelligent television, a computer, personal digital assistant or a cellular telephone.

According to one embodiment the advertisement is customized according to viewer/user responses to an offered selection of advertisements over the data network during or before content distribution.

The advertisement is selected directly or indirectly by the viewer/user from messages, products, product information, or purchase offers.

The advertiser can also be a content provider.

The selection menu may be based on a profile data, including viewing habits, of the viewers.

In one embodiment the viewer preferences, profiles or viewing habits are provided only to the advertisers.

In another embodiment of the method of the invention, the data network connects advertiser, content provider and individual viewer/user by viewing and communication means, so as to transmit advertisements by the viewers/users during transmission of the content to when the advertisements or advertised products or services added or embedded within.

There are several different ways in which the individualized advertisement can be brought to the attention of the viewer. One way would entail interrupting a broadcast of, e.g., a show, movie or news report (newscast) such that the advertisement would break into or interrupt the content transmission. Another way would mean incorporating the advertisement concurrently but spatially separately from the broadcast. The third way to a customized advertisement would integrate the advertisement or advertised products or services into the content of the broadcast thereby modifying the broadcast contract with individualized messages in the form of labeled products, for example.

More specifically, reference is taken to the customized advertisement associated or presented with or placed into or within the content of FIGS. 4 and 5, in particular.

The invention provides an embodiment to combine individualized advertisements with content, which content may or may not customized and may or may not be subject to a broadcast schedule.

In particular, individual searches conducted through electronic network search engines would add an individually tailored advertisement to the category or characteristics. For example, the category of search could generate individually tailored advertisements related to education (on-line degree), art history (group trip to Paris), medicine (insurance, drugs), nursing (upcoming course offerings), religion (books or tapes), mechanics (tools, magazines), archeology (upcoming “dig” advertised on-line), or meteorology (telescopes).

The present invention provides customized advertising presented with or placed into content, be it generic or customized, subject to, or independent of, a broadcast schedule.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete appreciation of the invention and any of the advantages thereof will be readily obtained as the same becomes better understood by reference to the detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a prior art block diagram view of a broadcast media industry paradigm;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram view of an embodiment of the computer system of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram view of an embodiment of the server of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram view of an embodiment of the user of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a block diagram view of an embodiment of the advertising modification of content to user system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 2 is a block diagram view of an embodiment of the computer system of the present invention. In FIG. 2, a computer system 200 is shown having a server storage medium 205. The server storage medium 205 may be any type of storage device as are well known in the art, for example, any type of disc including floppy disc, optical disc, DVD, CD-ROMS, magnetic optical discs, RAM, EPROM, EEPROM, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of storage media that is suitable for storing electronic instructions/data. The server storage medium 205 contains individual databases including an entire content media 210, an entire advertising media 215 and a personalized data database 220 of a user 240. It is noted that the personalized database 220 may also contain personalized data of multiple users. Each of these databases store either content 210, advertising 215 or personalized data 220 for use in the computer system 200 using an embodiment of the method of the present invention as described below. The computer system 200 further includes a server 225, which may have the embodiment of any general purpose computer as shown in FIG. 7 described below. It is noted that the computer system 200, as shown in the embodiment of FIG. 2, shows a server 225 and client 235 as two separate general purpose computers (FIG. 7). However, as is apparent to one skilled in the art, the server 225 and client 235 connected by the data network 230 may, in fact, be a single general purpose computer, where the data network 230 is a bus rather than a data network such as the Internet. That is, while the embodiment of FIG. 2 shows the server and client as separate entities, those entities may in fact be one general purpose computer.

Still in FIG. 2, a data network 230 connects the server 225 and the client 235. The data network 230 may be an Internet, an Intranet, an ethernet-type bus, or any type of connection that is able to transfer data between the server 225 and client 235. In one embodiment, the data network 230 is the Internet, where data is transmitted from different geographical locations where the server 225 and the client 235 are located. The server 225 includes a server processor (not shown), which may be any well-known central processing unit (CPU) or a microprocessor (whether a single microprocessor or a plurality of microprocessors). The server processor, in one embodiment of the present invention, generates a customized media list 226 from personalized data 241 that is entered by the user 240 to the client 235. Thus, as more fully described below, a user 240 will provide personalized data 241 to the client 235. Again, the client 235 is a computer system 200, which may be any general purpose computer.

After the user provides a profile 241 to the client 235, that profile 241 is transferred through the data network 230 to the server 225, which is also part of the computer system 200. Once at the server 225, a server processor generates a customized advertisement list 226 from said profile by reviewing the entire advertising media 215 to match it to profile 241 to create a customized advertisement list 226. By match, it is understood that particular algorithms are provided, within the server 225, in order to provide a customized advertisement list 226. The match occurs using properties of the advertising 215 as described below. An algorithm, a personalized advertising service module (FIG. 3), generates a customized advertising list 226. The algorithm is created using software programming techniques that may be programmed using languages such as Java, C++ or any basic conditional programming language. Any such algorithm would attempt to optimize the targeted viewers' response to the customized advertising.

Once the customized advertisement list 226 is generated by the server 225 using the algorithm described above, said list is transmitted through the data network 230 by any transmitting means. In one embodiment, the transmitting means would be any means of data communications including modem lines, cable, satellite, DSL, fiber optic lines or other well-known similar means for transmitting data between two remote locations. In a further embodiment, the transmitting means may be the bus described in the general purpose computer. Furthermore, the client 235 may be a single client, or a single general purpose computer such as the computer (FIG. 1), or may be multiple clients as shown in FIG. 2. A client processor (not shown) retrieves the selected customized advertising. That is, the client 235 receives the content to be associated with the customized advertisement, then the client processor may retrieve the selected customized advertising from other locations, based on the customized advertisement list 226. Once at the client 235, the content and customized advertisement list 226 are stored on a client storage medium. Again, the client storage medium may be any type of medium as described with regard to the server storage medium and the general purpose computer of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram view of the server 225 shown in FIG. 2. In FIG. 3, various software layers or modules are shown within the server 225. As is well known to one skilled in the art, these layers or modules are implemented in computer code to perform the functions described herein. It is noted that while the server 225 is shown with the layers or modules depicted in FIG. 3, various other hardware and software modules may exist within server 225 including, for example, the server processor, storage means, etc. to make the server a general purpose computer as exemplified in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1.

Still in FIG. 3, the server 225 is in communication with the data network 230 as depicted in FIG. 2. Within the server 225 are multiple software modules and/or layers. A client communication layer 300 manages the manner in which the server 225 communicates with the user 240. The client communications layer 300 is replaceable depending on the type of data network 230 utilized as well as the type of client utilized. Also in the server 225 is a personalized advertisement service module 305. The personalized advertisement service module 305 matches the advertisement contained in the entire advertising media 215 to the viewers' profiles. It is noted that these modules are implemented using software programming languages as described above. Also contained on the server 225 is the inventory management module 315. This module 315 works in conjunction with the personalized advertisement service module 305 efficiently provide those services 305 to a user. That is, the inventory management 315 is shared by the module 305.

The user management module 320 is used by the server 225 to receive the personalized data 241 of FIG. 3 and store such information on typical storage mediums. The user management module 320 takes the personalized data that consists of the personal profile of the user, the television show preference of the user and the past viewing habits of the user and stores that data on a storage medium in the server 225. That information is later transmitted to the personalized advertisement service module 305 that is later used to generate the customized advertisement list being returned to the user. The media transport service module 325 is also located on the server 225 and performs the function of retrieving the customized advertising that is based on the customized advertisement list 226. The media transport service module 325 communicates with the advertising media 210 to deliver the customized advertising to the user. It is noted that the server storage medium 205 contains the entire content media 215, the entire advertising media 210 and the profile of the user may be physical databases contained within the server or, in a further embodiment, may be databases located throughout remote data networks or remote servers that may be retrieved by the server 225. The database service module 330, much like the client communication layer 300, facilitates the communication between the server storage medium 205 and the modules 305, 310, 315, 320 and 325.

Numerous advantages exist with the method and system of the present invention as claimed below.

For example, with reference to the embodiment diagrammed in FIG. 4, the user/viewer 410 utilizes either through intelligent television or computer system 415 to access information. The computer system 415 encompasses electronic data storage in the server device 420 as aforementioned. The server device 420 accesses the data network 425 to receive information network data 430. Depending on the type of information sought, the user 410 gains information content data from the multiple content data stores 440. The targeted content of the multiple content data stores 440 can be added to the personalized data 445 which then are used to modify, customize or individualize advertisement 450 which is fed back in return to the server 420.

In an embodiment diagrammed in FIG. 5, the user/viewer 550 and advertiser 510 are connected and operate within a data network through a computer device or intelligent TV 500. The advertiser 510 receives information in the form of personalized data 530 from the user 550. The personalized data 530 are utilized by the advertiser 510 to modify or select advertising 515. The individually customized advertisement 515 is added to content 520 offered to the user/viewer 550.

First, advertisers now have highly personalized data on each user so that the advertising may be directed closely to the particular audience that advertisers wish to attract. Second, with knowledge of the personal data on the user/viewer, advertisers may be more confident in the percentage of those users/viewers that fit within its specific target audience, thereby reaching a higher percentage of that target audience than in the past.

Although the present invention has been described in detail with respect to certain embodiments and examples, variations and modifications exist which are within the scope of the present invention as defined in the following claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for providing a customized advertisement over a data network to a viewer/user, the customized advertisement, including products and services, being presented together with or placed within content, comprising: providing over a data network from an advertiser, content owner, content provider, or a combination thereof, to a viewer/user an advertisement that is customized for the individual viewer to be presented in the form of an addition to the content or an integral part of the content itself.
 2. A method for providing customized advertising to a user/viewer utilizing a computer system, said method comprising the steps of: receiving data identifying said user/viewer, said identifying data being correlated with a personal profile of said user/viewer, said profile being generated from the use/viewing habits of said user/viewer; generating customized advertising, wherein said customized advertising is selected from a collection of advertisement options, each of said selections being made by said user/viewer or in accord with the profile of said user/viewer; providing said customized advertisements to said user/viewer through said computer system for immediate available viewing of customized advertisements presented with or placed in context, generic or customized, subject to or independent of program broadcast schedules, or data network storage. 